What I’m Watching: ‘Venom’ is a superhero and a horror flickDate: 10/10/2018 What I’m watching: a fun little superhero movie that is really a horror film.
Venom in theaters
I saw the new movie “Venom” this weekend and enjoyed it a great deal for what it is: a monster movie that piled on the clichés at times in a manner that indicated the writer and director were just pulling our legs a bit.
This is not a movie that breaks new pop culture ground. For superhero movie fans, this is not a surprise such as the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie, nor is it profoundly dramatic such as “Logan” or inspiring such as “Wonder Woman.”
Essentially this film is a 21st Century take on the classic Universal Wolfman story. Give me a moment and I’ll explain.
For the non-comic book fans reading this review, “Venom” is a film that undoubtedly came about when Sony/Columbia studio folks realized what they could do with the characters involved in the studio licensing deal with Marvel Comics for Spiderman.
Making Spiderman movies these days is a delicate corporate arrangement between Sony, Disney and Marvel, but as Variety pointed out in an article last year, Sony/Columbia have the unfettered green light to develop films based on other characters in the Spiderman universe.
So why not take one of Spidey’s arch enemies and make him, well, kind of, a good guy?
There will be those who will have a fit trying to place this film into Marvel Universe, but don’t even try. It’s designed to be on its own.
In the comics, Venom is an alien symbiote who makes it to this world and must bind with a human host. He can give his host tremendous powers, but he is a bad guy.
In the film, we follow the doomed career of Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) a crusading journalist who gets fired when he confronts an Elon Musk-style futurist Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) about the ethics behind some of his endeavors.
It seems Brock has the right idea, as Drake has collected, through one of his private space missions, several alien creatures that he believes are the key to man conquering space. These creatures have several drawbacks: certain sounds can kill them and they don’t like fire. Most importantly, not all humans are acceptable hosts.
Of course, Drake doesn’t understand the aliens want to make humans both their hosts and dinner.
Brock winds up as a host for Venom and is of course horrified by what has happened to him. Venom can reside quietly in him or take over his body.
This is where I saw the connection to Lon Chaney Jr.’s classic performance as Larry Talbot, the poor guy who gets bit by a werewolf and becomes one. He is now hosting a separate entity he cannot control in his body.
Like Chaney, Hardy displays plenty of anguish over his situation, but the two characters diverge as Hardy’s Brock sees how this can be an advantage in stopping Drake from bringing more of these creatures to Earth.
Director Ruben Fleischer is perhaps best known for “Zombieland,” a wonderfully different and highly successful take on the zombie movie genre. In this film, he is clearly winking at horror fans by putting in moments that are fairly standard in scary movies, such as Drake admiring the aliens – who in this natural state look like some kind of animated asphalt – and declaring them “beautiful.”
We’ve seen that before.
“Venom” manages to rise above its by-the-numbers approach through the use of humor. Yes, there is a car chase through San Francisco – well down, by a car chase none-the-less. Yes, there is a huge fight between Brock and Drake and their respective symbiote at the conclusion of the film.
Hardy’s performance is essential to the film’s success. Brock is a likable enough guy and has our sympathy when he has Venom in him. When the story turns, though, Brock is a fitting hero trying to save the world.
Fleischer, though, stages all of this in a fast-moving style with a nod and wink. The result is a solid bit of entertainment that might upset Spiderman purists, but should be entertaining for mainstream audiences and horror fans.
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